Early non–Mongoloid inhabitants of the islands now called Japan, the non–Japanese-speaking Ainu were subjugated by the Japanese beginning in the early ninth century. The few Ainu who remain live in the northern islands. The essential dualism of Ainu mythology is expressed by a supreme deity in Heaven and evil deities who live in the world below. There is a fire goddess who presides over a kind of Last Judgment and there is a creation story that resembles the one in the Japanese Nihongi (see Nihongi). In this story a bird is sent down to earth to dry out some of the mud in the primordial slush so that islands can be formed for the Ainu (see Earth-Diver Creation). In one Ainu myth the creator is said to have sent a couple down to earth who gave birth to the first Ainu. The word ainu means human. Other myths say that the Ainu, who tend to have a great deal of body hair, are descended from the polar bear or a bear god. A bear sacrifice ritual is still practiced by the Ainu in which the sacrificed bear is sent “home” to the ancestors. The Ainu have a deluge myth in which a very few people escape to a mountain top. Many Ainu myths are contained in several heroic narratives, some as long as 15,000 lines, which were often sung by female shamans. (see Kotan Utunnai, and The Woman of Poi-Soya.)
